The Fuller Murder Case:

Fighting for Justice in the Catherine Fuller Murder Case
As a reporter at the Washington Post, Patrice Gaines spent six years (1995 – 2001), investigating the 1984 killing of a black woman. What she found convinced her that eight young black men now serving 35 years to life for the killing are innocent. Based on new evidence discovered by Gaines’s investigation, the Innocence Project of the National Capital Region has taken on the case and is fighting for a new trial for the young men.

The basic details of the murder are:
Catherine Fuller, mother of six, was walking from the store to her home in Northeast Washington, D.C on October 1, 1984, a busy, rainy afternoon. As she walked through an alley, someone brutally beat Mrs. Fuller to death, robbing her of about $50 in cash.

Police said a gang hit Mrs. Fuller, then dragged her deeper into the alley, where they kicked and beat her to death. Police also said someone used a stick to sodomize the woman. Initially police rounded up more than 13 black youths. Eight months after the killing, they charged 10 youths in the murder. Eventually, two became police witnesses and received lesser sentences; the other eight were charged, found guilty and sentenced to 35 years to life.

From the beginning, some of the details in the police version were baffling. No one in the neighborhood had ever heard of a gang in their community. There was no physical evidence—no blood or hair from the suspects and no weapon, not even the stick police said was used to sodomize the victim. The killing supposedly took place about 4:30 p.m. on a day when government checks are delivered and people in the community run to the store and the bank, yet none of the adult residents heard or saw anything. Witnesses were teens, most of them already known to police because they had committed other crimes or were waiting to go to court on pending charges.

Years after the murder and trial, with the help of Washington Post lawyers, Gaines and another reporter were able to obtain the police files. Through these files and interviews with so-called witnesses, she turned up new crucial evidence:

• All witnesses except one admitted to lying, saying police threatened them with murder charges unless they became witnesses against the defendants.

• A frightened witness went to police three weeks after the murder to say she was in the alley when the killing occurred. This woman, Ammie Davis, a heroin addict in her 30s, said she and a friend were shooting up in the alley when her friend jumped Mrs. Fuller and beat her to death for drug money. Police did not investigate the woman’s claims. Some weeks later, the man she accused of the murder shot Davis to death. The man had a lengthy record and a reputation for violence. He was serving time for Davis’s killing and about to be released when he died of sclerosis of the liver.

• Three other teens in the neighborhood purchased Mrs. Fuller’s wedding ring the night of her murder. They bought it for $5 from a couple in their 30s on the same block where Mrs. Fuller was killed, about an hour after her body was found. The next day, after hearing about the murder, the youths took the ring to Mrs. Fuller’s husband. Police were called—and again they did not follow standard procedure. Police questioned the teens and released them. Police did not search for the couple in the 30s, nor did they show the youths photos so they could identify the couple. Instead, the teens said police scared them into silence by threatening to make them a part of the gang and charging them with Mrs. Fuller’s murder also

Judging from police actions and considering the new evidence, it appears police made up their minds early, locking in on one possible scenario regarding the killing, and they ignored any evidence that did not fit this scenario. Today, seven of the youths remain imprisoned. The eighth died of an aneurism while in prison. Still, his mother fights beside the other mothers, with the hope that all of their sons will soon be free from prison and from their erroneous convictions as murderers.

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